Make yourself an animated avatar

[wwanthony]

Hi all,
although this is a software post I didnt think it would be really suited for the Software section as its nothing to do with Nokias.

Its just a Great little tool to make animated gifs and its what I used to make my little animated avatar. It works like dropping the gif files you want to animate into its window, so its incredibly easy to use. Just use an image editor like irfanview and paint to make the gifs and use this little proggie to stich them together in animation.

Its incredibly tiny (28kb) and doesnt need to install :)

[bobl]

Nice post, but on a side point, isn't the gif format illegal to use without a license?

But that is a side point, I'm sure this will be useful to anyone who finds the lounge :)

Cheers

Bob

[wwanthony]

Illegal??? you are kidding right?

its just an image file format lie jpg or bmp etc
you definately dont need any kind of liscence mate.

I notice you dont have an avatar Bob.
Why not have a go with the proggie :)
Its really easy and I think its good to have a boost of color in the forum, animated ones especially :p

[jeep]

Originally posted by bobl
Nice post, but on a side point, isn't the gif format illegal to use without a license?Technically, yes it is!

The LZW compression algorythm (the heart of GIF) is patented, so in theory, everyone downloading a GIF should have a license from Unisys..... of course, that problem extends to just about everyone on the planet
The U.S. LZW patent expires June 20, 2003, the counterpart Canadian patent expires July 7, 2004, the counterpart patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expire June 18, 2004, and the Japanese counterpart patents expire June 20, 2004. After expiration of the U.S. LZW patent on June 20, 2003, liability for patent infringement will occur only if an infringing act with respect to a product or service (e.g., developing, selling, offering to sell, making, using, distributing, downloading, exporting and/or importing) occurs in a country where the LZW patent has not expired. Ok - I'm guilty of downloading a GIF.... throw the key away now! (they have just under a year to catch me) Hang on, importing too.... this server isn't in the UK is it? I'm really in the shit now then :D

I think they realised that it's just about impossible for them to license (only 3000 since '95...?!) - hence they seem to be letting it drop. Sounds very similar to BT owning the hyperlink patent and trying to sue every website.... and failing :)

If you want more, try this BT patent breaking link (http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw/)

As for adding an aviatar, I'll do my enviromentally friendly thing and also not make other people break the law - (my artistic talents rank somewhere between those of a dead cat and an slug) - although please feel free to design one for me before I get sent to jail ;)


George
ps. I sent an email to the licensing information address saying that I downloaded someones avitar and "do I need a license". I blame the beer, but I'll post the reply (if any)

[wwanthony]

Well you learn something new everyday.
Its absolutely shocking to think i've been breaking the law all this time :eek: really strange they could patent an image format.

hey I have had a go at making a little animated avatar for you guys Bob and Jeep. I had an idea of an aminated jeep motor vehicle changing color but I had lots of trouble with the quality of the picture as these avatars can only be up to 50x50 :(

The one i've done for Bob is attached, its really quite funny. Only took me a second so if you dont like it thats fine with me :)

I noticed another thread here in the lounge with a fellow called Sunny who was making some very impressive animated avatars. He even designed NokDoc's so if your looking for a really proffesionaly styled one then hes the man.

[bobl]

LOL wwanthony. Thank you but...no thank you :D

tbh I hate avatars, they look nice (or not in my case :P), but they are a waste of bandwidth in my opinion :)

It was kinda a rhetorical question, but thank you jeep for explaning with all that detail. I believe the license for jpeg is also under consideration.

The interesting point to note is what Microsoft has done in paintbrush (I used it once and noticed this :P):

Download SP3 for Windows 2k and suddenly and magically, support for jpeg and gif in Paintbrush disappears.

Spooky eh?

I don't know what Adobe are gonna do? Have they bought licenses for all billion of their legal software owners? :)

(Or am I screwed :D)

Overall it's just better to use png anyway, you don't need a license :D

Cheers

Bob

[wwanthony]

LOL :D
I didnt realise how funny it looks until now.

you know who it is dont you? Bob the Builder from the popular childrens program and he even had his own pop song out.

come on youve got to use it. i'm sure the smiles you'll put on peoples faces will be worth much more then the bandwidth it uses.